# Linkeyes

Weekly Round-up 2018.51

Scientists typically define mammals as animals that have hair, produce live
young, and produce milk. It’s a simple definition, but nature is very good at
defying simple definitions. Platypuses, for instance, lay eggs. And plenty of
non-mammals produce milk for their young. One group of researchers from China
have discovered that even spiders produce milk, and it’s so nutritious that
their offspring eat it for a surprisingly long time.

Mr Tubridy is too privileged himself to get into the style of interviewing
that is needed to really interrogate Fine Gael’s privatisation goals; as the
taoiseach is too privileged to even see the problem of homelessness in the
first place, except as a kind of abstract “problem”, out there somewhere.

If you find yourself doing a double-take while driving down Route 128 between
Westford and Fairfax — yes, that is a seven-foot-tall sculpture of a raised
middle finger, carved from a 700-pound block of pine and perched atop a
16-foot pole on the property of Ted Pelkey.

Harris doesn’t know why people burn money. He makes a point not to ask.
“One of the rules I set myself was to never ask or tell anyone to burn their money”
For Harris, it’s less about why he does it and more a question of, “Why not?”

Viruses have a bad reputation – but some of them could one day save your life,
says biotech entrepreneur Alexander Belcredi. In this fascinating talk, he
introduces us to phages, naturally-occurring viruses that hunt and kill harmful
bacteria with deadly precision, and shows how these once-forgotten organisms
could provide new hope against the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant
superbugs.

The building’s exterior is covered with a substance called Vantablack VBx2,
a derivative of nanomaterial Vantablack. Touted as the darkest man-made substance
in the world, the original Vantablack is so black the human eye can’t quite
decipher what it is seeing.

It is said to be the closest thing to a black hole we will ever experience.

That’s because Vantablack is not a color, it’s the almost complete absence of color.

Weekly Round-up 2018.42

“Hang on a minute, I’ve not died, no-one’s died, life’s gonna go on!” John Herety says,
half-agreeing that seeing the news in print was like reading his own obituary and half
laughing at the very concept. “It’s not as bad as you think. A well-established team that’s
been around for a few years in your eyes has suddenly gone, but not in our eyes.”

In a recent study by Stephané Bermon and Pierre Yves Garnier, they tested over 2,000 IAAF
world championship track and field athletes and found that 1⁄6 of the male athletes were
in or below the female range of testosterone, so a disproportionate amount of elite males
have very low testosterone. This study showed there is absolutely no relationship between
testosterone in terms of performance in males. The relationship they found in women was
weak and sporadic.

When science doesn’t back your opinion up, of course the science is wrong.

Scientists are hoping to hang the man-made moon above the city of Chengdu, the capital
of China’s southwestern Sichuan province, according to a report in Chinese state media.
The imitation celestial body — essentially an illuminated satellite — will bear a
reflective coating to cast sunlight back to Earth, where it will supplement streetlights at night.

If this worked, they project savings of $173 million per year in electricity costs.
There are soo many questions though. I’ll file this under “not going to happen”.

Privatisation and austerity have not only weakened the country’s financial position –
they have also handed unearned wealth to a select few. Just look at a new report from
the University of Greenwich finding that water companies could have funded all their
day-to-day running and their long-term investments out of the bills paid by customers.
Instead of which, managers have lumbered the firms with £51bn of debt to pay for
shareholders’ dividends. Those borrowed billions, and the millions in interest, will
be paid by you and me in our water bills. We might as well stuff the cash directly
into the pockets of shareholders.

I can’t think of one example where privatisation of anything in Ireland has been good
for it’s citizens.

Weekly Round-up 2018.41

We missed the community. We missed designing products for ourselves. We missed that killer Aaron
Draplin-designed logo. UP is what put us on the proverbial map, and has been more responsible for
our success than any other single thing we’ve ever done as a company since 2009. We knew we couldn’t
allow it to stay dormant forever.

\o/

For each t-shirt, pin, notebook, or other item that you purchase, 10% of our gross revenue will go
to an industry-related organization in need.

I took a diversion through Old Ross where I observed a signpost pointing towards the
‘Scullabogue Memorial’. This was, as far as I could see, the only signpost on any public road
to an especially significant and poignant memorial. Yet, after two hours of driving around the
rural hinterland of New Ross, my wife and I still could not find the memorial

This is probably the best illusion I've ever seen. The blue and red lines are all the same length; none is moving or changing size, and they’re all at the same level. Only the arrowheads are moving. https://t.co/bDyeOKXgbCpic.twitter.com/V6KrmLkiPr

Sophie Power didn’t race UTMB, a 105-mile trail race around Mont Blanc, just three months after
giving birth to her son Cormac because she wanted to make a point to the world. She raced UTMB
because she wasn’t prepared to give up on a dream she’d been chasing for four years. “Yes, if
I could have deferred that place I absolutely would have done so,” says Sophie. “I had my place
in 2014 and I lost that because I was pregnant and I couldn’t defer it. I tried to get in to race
CCC [a 63-mile race that is part of the UTMB running festival] in 2015, and then in 2016 and 2017
I tried for UTMB. I missed out two years in a row, which means you get your automatic place in
2018,” explains Sophie. “I knew that it would be a long time before I got another place.”

In 2018, it’s almost unbelievable that athletes can get race deferral for an injury but not
pregnancy. Almost, but not quite, because it happens all the time.

UTMB is one of the most famous ultra-distance races in the world, and it should lead by example
here and allow pregnant women to defer. Sophie Power you are amazing 👏

"In real-life communication, we use touch to communicate emotions with others. However,
current technology doesn’t use touch as an information channel. This project is just one approach
for how we can receive a remote touch. Another aspect of this work is the relationship we are
building with our mobile devices."

" For some reason, introducing any stimulant like this one into Irish society is like
introducing a packet of Mentos into a recently shaken up bottle of Diet Coke. We shake violently.
We rupture. We convulse, as a people. It’s a mess."

I loved this article by Carl Kinsella on the car-park craziness in Blanch recently, all due to the
fact that a 24 hour donut drive-thru opened.

"Nested on the servers’ motherboards, the testers found a tiny microchip, not much bigger
than a grain of rice, that wasn’t part of the boards’ original design.
…
investigators determined that the chips allowed the attackers to create a stealth doorway into
any network that included the altered machines"

Industrial espionage stories although in many cases terrifying, are also pretty cool to read about.

"moths gently insert their straw-like proboscis into the eyes of their unwary hosts,
sucking out the nutrient-laden tears. Scientists have watched moths drink the tears from
various mammals, and even reptiles like turtles and crocodiles. But on birds, not so much."

I'm sometimes asked if working in Film/TV detracts from my enjoyment of watching shows, b/c I'm aware of what's going on behind the lens. I tell them that I often appreciate something more knowing the craft that went into it. E.g.: This is some real movie magic shit right here: pic.twitter.com/7YqYOb9zmV